A Vicious Cycle
by deliarious
Summary: As graduation quickly approaches, Kyo desperately undertakes a new strategy to beat Yuki...one that doesn't involve fighting. Things become complicated when Yuki slowly reveals himself to be more than the 'selfish rat' Kyo's always hated. Slash, YukiKyo.


**Disclaimer:** Fruits Basket and all its characters belong to the venerable Natsuki Takaya and Hakusensha publishers. I am making no profit whatsoever from this, so leave me and my pretty delusions in peace. :P The opening lyrics to this story are from The Smiths' "How Soon is Now?"

Rated for profanity. Details from the manga canon will be integrated lavishly.

---_  
when you say it's gonna happen "now"_  
_well, when exactly do you mean?  
see I've already waited too long_  
_and all my hope is gone  
you shut your mouth  
how can you say  
I go about things the wrong way  
I am human and I need to be loved__  
just like everybody else does  
---  
_

chapter one: **deadlock**

The glare on his enemy's smug, hateful grey eyes never wavered from Kyo's vision as he ascended the ladder to the school's rooftop, with the nimble agility that was the cat's birthright. He took a look around, shaking from the residual adrenaline that was still coursing through his veins, and slumped to the floor in a huddled posture. His safe haven. There was room to breathe up there, up away from the idiots who didn't seem to know how easy they had it, and especially from that goddamn Yuki and his goddamn eyes that showered him in a spray of ruthless, silver-masked contempt.

God, how that guy could piss him off. It was as if he possessed some sort of innate talent of knowing just where and how to push Kyo's buttons. Kyo had thought by now he'd grown at least a little bit better handle over his temper – Tohru being, of course, a driving factor – but Yuki didn't even need to try and he'd lay Kyo's efforts all to waste.

"I'm sorry...I really thought you and Yuki-kun were starting to get along," Tohru had said to him once plaintively, after one of their more recent fights. He had felt guilty at the time, only because he had known that their frequent quarrels always caused her pain, and Tohru was more undeserved of pain than anyone he knew. But the guilt never seated deeply enough to make him relinquish his hatred for the rat. The long-standing enmity between them was far too ingrained into his makeup to ever be purged by kind words. No matter how much he cared for Tohru and how much she had done for him just by simply accepting him, this was one area her healing touch couldn't reach, couldn't erase.

It had always been this way, as long as he could remember. He and Yuki were caught up in an vicious, unending cycle of hatred. A cycle whose origins lay in obscurity, save for the old legends and prejudices that everybody in their family swallowed as truth, that no one dared ever question. A cycle from which they could never escape. And some part of him, the black bead of venom in his blood, didn't want to escape. Despite Tohru's hopes that they would someday come to understand each other and become "friends" – Kyo snorted, in spite of himself – he wanted to hate Yuki. Hell, he _needed_ to hate Yuki. He didn't know why. It seemed like the only way he could stop himself from breaking down entirely beneath the pressures of being born the Cat.

He hadn't forgotten his promise from so long ago to kill – with his own hands – whomever was cursed with the spirit of the Rat, as if such a thing _could_ be considered a curse. It was an oath declared in a state of passion, nothing more. The memory irritated him more than anything, just another one of those childish, empty promises he couldn't keep. Murder was entirely not an option, no matter how much he despised the rat, but still he was desperate to find _some_ way to beat him. It didn't help that time was as much his enemy as Yuki was. The date of his confinement was nearing dangerously, casting a shadow over what little freedom he had left.

He shuddered, feeling his blood chill just thinking about what he was headed for if he didn't win, the lightless prison doomed to him for the rest of his mortal life. Finally – it would set the seal on his status as the outcast of the Juunishi: the foolish cat, the wretched monster, the bane of the curse. People would shake their heads and say that he had had it coming. People who had never felt a day's worth of pain in their lives would pity him. _What had he been _thinking_, taking up an impossible offer like that_. It was laughable. The cat could never defeat the rat. That was just how it was, how it had always been, and the cat must be truly stupid after all to contest it. And his father would laugh and laugh in that sinister tone laced with hatred and say it was retribution.

And Yuki...Yuki would stand there, pristine and perfect, with his cold eyes flashing in triumph as they led Kyo away for good, like the fucking picture of righteousness. _You deserved it, stupid cat. Did you really think you could win? You're pathetic._

Kyo snarled at his own fantasies and rolled onto his other side, trying to block out the echoes of Yuki's imaginary taunts reverberating through his head. Even in his own mind he wasn't free of him.

But it didn't change the truth of it. Much as he hated to admit it – and it was useless to challenge fact – he stood virtually no chance against the damn rat. Two more months wasn't about to change that when _years_ of heavy training couldn't even aid him in winning a single fight. To his credit, it wasn't exactly his fault, he thought grumpily. He was a damn good martial artist – his victories over Haru could corroborate that. Yuki was just a freak – a slender, irritating, ridiculously effeminate freak whose body happened to be a powerhouse of brute energy. And a lucky freak at that.

He needed some sort of leverage on him, Kyo realized as he sat up, the wind coursing through his tousled orange hair. Some crack or chink in his princely façade he could exploit to his advantage, to even out the playing field a bit. Even Yuki Sohma couldn't be wholly perfect. He had to have _some_ vulnerability, beneath the layers of fluid grace and icy, condemning smiles.

But what?

---

The last bell had sounded, signaling the end of class. Kyo shrugged off a few of his classmates asking after his condition and left as quickly as it was possible. Tohru was walking to her part-time job, and the rat probably had some meeting to attend, so it would be a solitary walk home again. Not that he minded. Anything would be better than being forced to endure Yuki's presence for more than he needed to. Yuki had not risen to any of Kyo's challenges to combat ever since his tacit refusal at the beach house, so he wouldn't even have been able to look forward to _that_. The fucker. How was Kyo supposed to win against him now if the bastard wouldn't even fight him back?

"…haha…even so, I don't think that's the sort of example a _responsible _vice president should be setting for the rest of his class…"

Speaking of whom…Kyo exhaled deeply through his nose. Yuki was walking up from behind him, accompanied by a black-haired guy who seemed vaguely familiar. Both of them were laughing over presumably something the black-haired guy just said – Kyo figured he must be the vice president and immediately recognized where he'd seen him before – but what caught Kyo's interest was Yuki, _laughing_. Yuki never laughed or betrayed any extremes of emotion, at least not in any instance Kyo could recall. Somehow the idea that Yuki was capable of doing something so – human – was unnerving, like a disillusionment. As if to reinforce Kyo's thought train, when Yuki shifted and caught Kyo's eye his laughter immediately died, as if it had never existed, and his expression turned at once cold and intense. Kyo drew himself up and tried to mirror Yuki's remote, indecipherable mask.

The vice president kept casting inquisitive looks at him over his shoulder, like Kyo was a bomb that might go off any second. Kyo hotly returned the looks with interest. "Go on without me," Yuki muttered to his black-haired co-worker and turned around.

For a moment the only sound rippling the silence was the ricocheting of the black-haired guy's shoes off the tiled flooring. Then before Kyo could react – somehow, the notion of catlike reflexes _would _fail to work around this guy – Yuki had strolled up to him and jerked him violently by the shirt collar. Kyo's pulse raced. Their faces were inches apart, far too close for Kyo's liking – and comfort.

"Dammit, let go of me," Kyo growled, making an effort to put some distance between the two of them, but Yuki's grip on the tight fabric never slackened.

"Haven't you realized what an idiot you've been?" Yuki asked in a low hiss. It was amazing how he could manage to radiate nearly palpable waves of anger while still maintaining his usual, unflappable calm. "Stop worrying Honda-san by running out of class like that. You know how she gets when you pull those kinds of stunts. Especially when we're in public."

Kyo bit his lip. He hadn't meant to upset Tohru, who was really too kind-hearted and thoughtful for her own good sometimes. But he sure as hell wasn't going to show any sign of weakness before the rat. His eyes narrowed to firey slits. "Don't think you're in the position to lecture me on what and what not to do," he retorted, finally pulling himself from Yuki's grasp. "Shouldn't you have some stupid council meeting to be getting to? They'll probably be missing their _saintly_ president by now, eh?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. And I'd appreciate it if you didn't have to force me to take time out of my schedule to reprimand you for your stupid behavior." Yuki folded his arms, looking every inch the role of student body president. Who did the guy think he _was_, Kyo couldn't help thinking bitterly as Yuki turned on his heel, walking away with a careless, aggravating fluidity.

He snapped forward impulsively and caught his cousin's arm, wringing it. "Damn you. You're an asshole, you know that."

The look of surprise on Yuki's face slid off to be replaced with a smile, frigid as always. "Being around you doesn't leave me much of a choice, does it." He disengaged himself, still smiling in that same maddening way.

Typical "Prince" Yuki comeback. Twist it around to make it all _his_ fault. "Well, you may have everyone fooled into thinking you're so damned perfect," he spat, "but you know what? I think you're just as bad as I am. For all your _holier-than-thou_ pretenses, you're just as bad. At least _I_ don't try to fake it."

To Kyo's private satisfaction, it seemed as though Yuki had been effectively quelled to silence. Something in his expression appeared to have deadened. Then, carefully, "What is _that_ supposed to mean?"

Kyo was only too keen to continue, feeling more than fourteen years of pent-up jealousy and hatred surging up inside him and spurring him on, clamoring to be given voice. "What do you think I mean? It took me years to see it, but you're a damn fraud. You're arrogant and condescending and so damned cocky," Kyo gave a bitter laugh, relishing the vitriol on his lips, "but no, to everyone else, you're the beautiful, dashing, _princely_ Yuki Sohma – "

"Better than being a stupid cat," Yuki retaliated, disgust marring his pretty face. "But then, it must be so easy for you – having everyone else to blame for everything that goes wrong in your stupid life."

"Don't act like _you_ could understand!" Kyo shouted, advancing closer. His hands were shaking convulsively. "Someone like you – a spoiled, conceited bastard – couldn't understand at all."

Yuki's eyes, shadowy in the dim light being cast from outside the window, suddenly had a strange glint in them. "Maybe I understand a lot better than you think," he said quietly, his voice infused with something Kyo couldn't place – it wasn't its usual note of contempt, or loathing. What Yuki said next staggered him even more. "It's lucky for you that I'm even here; otherwise…who else would serve as your scapegoat?"

Kyo opened his mouth, then after a short interval closed it defeatedly, feeling his rebuttal deflating like a punctured balloon. His mind refused to answer that – even repelling the mere thought of it. He _hated_ Yuki; what the hell was there more to it? But Yuki did not seem interested in waiting for an answer. He turned and strode away, the perfect, uninterrupted inaudibility of his departure giving new truth to the expression "silent as a mouse." He was gone.

Silently Kyo cursed. How could he win over someone like that?


End file.
